Well, what do you think? In my opinion, this guy is as sinister as they come. I think he’s a manipulative demagogue who has nothing but self-interest at heart.

I think Declan Ganley is one of the most dangerous people ever to have emerged into the Irish political scene. In more extreme times, he would have the capacity to lead a movement of people in coloured shirts, and who knows where he’d lead them?

Ganley, in my opinion, opposes the Lisbon Treaty not out of conviction but because he perceives it to be against his business interests. This is in severe contrast to Joe Higgins, a man I admire, who opposes it on principle.

Now, let’s see if Ganley follows through on his statement that he’ll withdraw from the Lisbon debate if he fails to achieve a mandate. Let’s see.

The electorate has chosen to withhold a mandate from him, so let’s see if he accepts the democratic will of the people he purports to speak for.

Personally, I doubt it. I think he’ll continue to lobby in one form or another, but let’s see. Maybe he’ll surprise us all. It’s hard to imagine Libertas just shutting up shop and going away after all that American defence-contractor money was spent setting it up.

I’m delighted that Ganley didn’t get a seat, and neither did any of the Libertas candidates in Ireland. As happy as I was when McDowell didn’t get re-elected in the last General Election.

Does anyone know about in the other countries, France especially where he teamed up with some other strange groupings.

As for Lisbon: there are good things and bad things in it. But overall, I believe that it is needed in order for the EU Institutions to work better and more efficiently. I’m interested in hearing peoples’ objections and worries though: as those given by Libertas, Youth Defence (or whatever they were calling themselves) were eventually shown to be only scare-mongering with no truth in them whatsoever.

“Now, let’s see if Ganley follows through on his statement that he’ll withdraw from the Lisbon debate if he fails to achieve a mandate. Let’s see.”

I’m glad he’s gone as well, but I thought it was stupid of him to equate winning an MEP seat with having any sort of mandate on the Lisbon treaty. We get the same crap from TDs. Thanks to the late Mr. Crotty, these things are specifically taken out of the hands of representatives, and put directly to the people. It’s OUR vote, and they have no special mandate over it. They had a mandate to ASK it the first time round as it had been finalised, and they had a policy in favour of ratifying. But once it went to the people and came back, they had no further mandate to push it. And the decision to re-run it didn’t come from the people either. It’s not like the YES voters formed a big lobby group. It was the EU state leaders and unelected eurocrats who screamed loudest for FF to re-run it, and they certainly can’t claim a mandate to reverse the result of an open and fair referendum result. Even those of you who voted YES the first time should admit that.

Mr. Ganley’s vote will have the same weight as Mr. Cowen’s or mine or yours.

It’s a war charter. It standardises and upgrades the materiel and s.o.p.s of the various EU member states, coalescing them into a nEU model army. all we need then is another Little Corporal or Corsican. Small men with big ideas. That’s why I oppose the Lisbon. Plus the sneaky way those unelected unaccountable fucks(via the elected unaccountable fucks we call a government) tried to ram it down our throats via subterfuge intimidation and lies.

All n all, this blog entry is wonderful, because we’ve gobe from talking about Ganley to talking about the issues. A month ago this worked the other way around.
I defend the No vote too, we can do much better for Europe and ourselves. We should enetr negotiation with Iceland and come up sustainable fishing policies. We’re looking the gift horse of choosing a decent future for Europe in the mouth. I would urge all newly elected MEPs to just start fresh and forget the Lisbon Treaty. We can’t be dividing ourselves down the middle over a document from Brussels. It would be a Pyrrhic victory for either side and I believe it contravenes Art. 6.1
The media and government wants a referendum, but I honestly don’t believe the citizens do.

Might be a bit late to get into some fisheries deal with Iceland. They’re attempting to fast-track into the EU. In fairness, they protected their fisheries with a real Navy, and built up a credible fishing fleet and processing industry. In all honesty when we entered the then EEC in 1972, we didn’t give two fucks about the rich harvest off our coasts. A Navy of 3 or 4 boats (ships might be too generous a description) famously lampooned by Ronnie Drew’s song of the time, including the line …”All the sailors go home for their tea”….While the population regarded seafood as Penance food, only to be eaten on Fridays under pain of eternal damnation as Ganleys friends in the holy orders were always quick to remind us, that is, when they weren’t too busy elsewhere, let’s say.

Maybe the remnant legions of Holy Ganleys grail want us to swap places with Iceland, now that we’re blessed with such expert fishermen and have gotton over our fish on anyday but friday phobia.

They are paying 18% interest with an untradeable currency to contrast with a near zero ECB rate and Euro membership here. Perhaps they might consider it a good deal if we want to become British Daily Telegraph/UKIP “eurosceptics” now that the easy money is squandered.

Conditional perhaps on the following: Provided we keep Fianna Fail and our Catholic Church masters, no Icelandic worth his sea-salt would be inclined to swallow that pair of sharks.